LulzSec hackers deface The Sun and Times websites

News International websites for The Sun and The Times had to be taken down last night after notorious hacker group LulzSec posted fake news stories claiming the death of Rupert Murdoch and redirected the pages to their Twitter account.

In what has been a hellish couple of weeks for Murdoch’s media empire – that saw a phone hacking scandal spiral out of control and claim the careers of its chief executive Rebekah Brooks and two of the UK’s senior most police officers – the hacker group created fake pages claiming the media mogul’s demise.

LulzSec is also claiming it is sitting on the email addresses and passwords of The Sun newspaper’s staff.

In what is understood to be the first major hack of a newspaper’s website, LulzSec also published what it claims is Brooks’ email address and boasted it knew her password.

A hoax story placed on The Sun’s webpage claimed Murdoch had taken poison.

LulzSec also threatened that this is the first of more attacks to come on News International websites.

Within hours of the attack, The Sun and The Times websites were back to normal.

LulzSec is behind high-profile attacks on Sony, Nintendo, Fox.com and the US Senate, to name but a few. At the end of June, the group claimed it was ceasing activities.